Not Even Tom Cruise Can Save a Woke Movie

The last movie star doesn't have enough box-office-draw to save a movie that is a lecture about climate change. Hard to believe that Hollywood couldn't see that. From Breitbart: Nolte: Tom Cruise’s Global Warming Propaganda ‘Digger’ About to Lose $100+ Million

When the teaser trailer was released, I thought this looked interesting. Cruise is a good actor, and before he became Hollywood's action star (and even after) he had a bit of comic timing. When the first full trailer came out I lost all interest. (I don't need a 2 hour lecture from people who live in huge homes, and fly in private jets.) John Nolte has the details on the development of the movie, and the current projections.

Here’s a movie designed in a Woke Lab to hit the sweet spot of critics…

• Evil white men.
• Evil businessmen.
• Oil bad.

There is more in that list.

And now we have box office projections.

And now it’s about to open wide all across America and, per the professional estimates, humiliate itself and its star with an $8 million to $12 million opening. If these projections hold, a movie made for no Normal Person could lose more than $100 million.

There is more, including the current state of Hollywood. Click thru.

That $8 to $12 million projection is apparently from Box Office Theory and Shawn Robbins. As I type this on Thursday night, his projections are $7.5 million to $12 million, while the studio is looking for $12 to $15 million. Either way this is a disaster. The Numbers has the production budget at $125 million, not including marketing.

Since studios get about half of the take at the box office (it turns out movie theaters don't show movies for free), The movie would need to gross about $250 million just to cover the production budget. I have no idea what the advertising and marketing budget would be for a film like this, but I would think that $80 million would not be out of the question for a film staring Cruise.

The only way Hollywood is going to stop making Woke movies, is when they decide that they need to actually make money to survive. You would think that they are there, but apparently not quite.

AG Bonta's Paramount Nightmare

No AI tokens were harmed in the creation of this totally-legitimate video. OK, maybe that is a stretch.

Updated ending based on today's news that Paramount and Bobo Bonta have settled. Enjoy!

And as before, this was all me, not approved or coordinated with any campaign or any PAC, just little old me ;) This is a work of satire and parody protected by the first amendment. K thnx.… pic.twitter.com/XWZ3dbSKXR

— LPP - Latinos Por Poder (@LatinosPorPoder) September 21, 2026

Because his actions made absolutely sure that Paramount would leave, no matter what happened with the merger.

A Neighborhood in L.A., Hollywood, Was the Movie Industry

Past tense. From Stephen Green at PJ Media: Say Goodbye to Hollywood... If It Even Exists Anymore

Hollywood and Los Angeles were once so inextricably intertwined that you could hardly mention one without picturing the other. So much more than just a neighborhood in central Los Angeles, Hollywood simply was the entertainment industry — a name that conjured all the glamour, glitz, beauty, wealth, thrills, and tabloid debauchery of a magical place that could only exist in America.

Say "Hollywood" in the 1980s, and people didn't think of that neighborhood in Los Angeles, they thought of the movie industry.

Steve Martin's 1991 movie L.A. Story was a "love letter to a version of Los Angeles" that was already on its way to being history.

It's been decades since film and TV production began decamping from Los Angeles to Toronto, British Columbia, Georgia, the U.K., and... Hungary? Yes, Hungary. Pretty much anywhere but Los Angeles. But the trend accelerated in recent years. The city has lost 40% or more of its production jobs from COVID-era peaks. Remember, those are the industry "grunts," as it were, who were middle class and far more conservative than the Hollywood elites.

Now Paramount is decamping for either Georgia, Tennessee, or Texas. That is whether or not (I think not) California stops the Warner Brothers merger. And if the merger goes through that will be the end of Hollywood. If the merger doesn't go through, Warner Bros. will go bankrupt, be broken up and sold off for parts, so same impact on Hollywood.

And none of the considers the move to film everything in the UK.

Click thru for more on the past, the politics surrounding the merger, and a Musical Interlude from Billy Joel.

The Complete Film Threat Library to be Available

Well, it is to be available by way of Kickstarter, so no guarantees. Though I trust Chris Gore to make it happen.

Chris Gore started Film Threat in 1985. First it was a Zine, and then a legitimate magazine. It was owned by Larry Flynt for a while, but Chris got the rights back after they shut down the magazine.

During all of that time Chris Gore has focused his life on movies, and in particular independent film.

Today, Film Threat lives on as a website devoted to movies, and a YouTube channel.

The entire print run is going to be available by way of Kickstarter. The FILM THREAT Compendium and Digital Archive

Launched in 1985, FILM THREAT magazine established itself as the most respected authority in covering cult, underground and independent cinema — as well as offering a unique take on Hollywood. Our pages have featured exclusive behind-the-scenes coverage, in-depth interviews with rising filmmakers, and a wealth of insight and information about not only the movies you love, but ones you otherwise never would have heard of.

The Compendium is a 300 page book. It will include "interviews with writers, directors, producers, actors and other filmmakers" in the world of independent film.

An important companion to The FILM THREAT Compendium is our completely remastered Digital Archive, collecting the entire print run of the magazine — including the early Xerox ’zine editions and the complete run of the ever-edgy FILM THREAT VIDEO GUIDE! That's right, from celluloid renegades Nick Zedd and Richard Kern to an array of other alternative filmmakers who sought to assault their audiences.

Chris G. produced a couple of independent movies in his career, he was a recurring host on the G4 program Attack of the Show, he has written the books The 50 Greatest Movies Never Made, The Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide, and more. Not that all of that is included in this Kickstarter.

It should be an interesting look at movies, if from a slightly odd point of view. I'm looking forward to it. (While this probably sounds like an ad, it isn't. I just really like Film Threat.)

Woke Lanterns Writer Begs Fans for Another Chance

Why do the bad writers, and show runners in Hollywood think they deserve chances? In the 1960s through the 1990s, shows that pissed off their audiences, or never found one, got canceled in the middle of a season.

Shows didn't get commitments for 2 seasons before a single episode aired. If you didn't deliver for the advertisers, you were gone. As much as I hate ads, I think we had better shows in the '80s and '90s, and into the early 2000s, than we have today. Much better, in some cases.

This is Ryan Kinel's video Woke Lanterns Writer BEGS Fans To Keep Watching After DESTROYING The Show!

Why I (Almost) Never Watch Sequels

Or why I never race out to see a sequel, until the reviews come in. With a few exceptions, like The Empire Strikes Back.

This is the Critical Drinker's video The Five Worst Sequels Ever

And so, there you have it. The Drinker's top five worst sequels of all time. They were not fun to revisit. Trust me, they all failed in their own unique ways, but they're all unified by the fact that the world would probably be a much better place if they never existed.

The video is 12 minutes, so grab a coffee, or your beverage of choice.

This doesn't even include my least-favorite sequel. The Matrix: Reloaded. Matrix 2 and 3 are so bad, they travel back in time and destroy whatever fondness I had for the original. But then I never bothered to watch Joker 2. Or Independence Day: Regurgitation.

For every Godfather 2, or Empire, you get a dozen, or more Speed 2: Cruise Control movies.

The Lanterns Show Is Typical Woke Slop

From Marvin Montanaro at Geeks + Gamers, we get the update. REVIEW: Lanterns Episode 3 is a Race-Baiting Betrayal of Green Lantern Lore—Possibly the Worst Thing DC Has Ever Produced

The article contains spoilers, in case anyone is worried about watching this drek.

Lanterns Episode 3 “OutKast” replaces willpower with a nonsensical fear test, turns John Stewart’s childhood into an abusive social experiment, and rewrites Green Lantern mythology around one of the ugliest racial messages ever forced into a superhero adaptation.

Marvin M. is a reviewer/editor at That Park Place and Geeks + Gamers. I like his take on pop culture.

I don't think we have viewer numbers that anyone trusts yet. Nielsen takes several weeks. There is probably some data available, but I'm not interested enough to go looking.

More proof that Hollywood hates heros in general, superheros in particular, and want nothing more than to pull the genre down into the dirt. Well, that, and the fact that most of them can't write worth a damn.

Echo Chamberlain on the Death of Star Trek

It didn't die of natural causes. They Killed Star Trek - Echo Chamberlain's Substack

Carthage, 146 BC: Rome destroyed the city, enslaved the surviving population, extinguished it as a centre of civilisation and salted the earth.

Baghdad, 1258: The Mongols killed thousands and destroyed palaces, institutions and libraries. Books turned the Tigris River black with ink.

But nothing in history has been more ransacked, pillaged and desecrated than Star Trek.

Like most Sci-Fi and Fantasy today, including the stuff coming out of Marvel, it is written by people who don't like the source material, who don't understand the source material, and don't like genre.

After several years of covering modern entertainment, I’m still stricken with the same question: how can it be this bad? How can things be the absolute worst version of themselves? How do the makers not register how pathetic the content is? How could things take their precisely most aggravating and disappointing form? How can it be, with almost preternatural exactness, the furthest measurable, and travelable, distance from the point of the franchise’s ideal form?

When every franchise has been, and continues to be, destroyed in similar ways, it is not a coincidence. It is an assault on the very idea of heroic entertainment.

Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker are no longer heroic figures, but bitter old men, who were never doing things right. Tolkien's Orcs are not the embodiment of chaos and destruction, but are just a misunderstood minority. Sauron is not the embodiment of evil, but a hottie who Galadriel has a thing for. It is the systematic destruction of Western literature, and Western civilization.

Or that is my opinion. Click thru to see what Echo Chamberlain thinks.

Lanterns or Mystery Box the Show?

No one likes DC's new show Lanterns, and of course the usual suspects cry "Racism." The only reason anyone could hate this show is because they don't like a black Green Lantern.

If you want to know what is going on in Lanterns, they took Hal Jordan and gave him the Indiana Jones/Luke Skywalker treatment. He's an old, drunk who needs to be shown what to do by the younger minority. Unlike Indiana Jones, where he gets saved by his replacement, Hal Jordan was killed.

So now tell me how Derek Anderson is racist. Go ahead, I'll wait. The video is only 11 minutes.

This is Derek Anderson's video LANTERNS EPISODE 2 IS A MESS! James Gunn's DCU Doesn't Understand Green Lantern

Hollywood needs to die, and be replaced by something else.

RIP Star Trek

Star Trek premiered on 8 September 1966. 60 years ago this fall. I didn't watch it until it was on syndication, in the 1970s. (We had 1 TV in 1966, and my dad would not watch a SciFi show back then.)

When Nerdrotic says that the fans saved this franchise from the studio, he is right. The studio killed it, in part by starving the show for a budget that could sustain SciFi, and then cancelling it. It lived in syndication, through the 1973 animated series, and eventually through Star Trek fan conventions. The studio would eventually approve a movie. It was a disaster, because they didn't understand Trek. They wanted spectacle, and Trek was always about ideas. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, was more true to form.

Since the J.J. Abrams era started with the Reboot (reboot - because Hollywood has no creativity) things have gone to shit. Abrams admitted in at least one interview that he didn't like Star Trek, which probably explains why he tried to turn it into something else.

This is Nerdrotic's video Star Trek is DEAD, Jim - Why it Failed. The video is 23 minutes.

Lanterns

Because the show runner, Damon Lindelof, thought Green was stupid or something.

Green Lanterns isn't my favorite comic of all time, but if you are going to hire someone to adapt a superhero comic for TV, maybe you should hire someone who doesn't hate superhero comics.

This is Critical Drinker's video Lanterns - A Superhero Show That Hates Superheroes

Instead of making a show about intergalactic space cops going on cosmic adventures and battling all manners of weird and wonderful alien threats, they instead decided to make a Temu version of True Detective, complete with bleak, cynical, and mostly unlikable characters who constantly have to swear to prove just how edgy they are. Patched together with all the tedious tropes of modern Hollywood writing and the usual laundry list of safe, predictable political targets like Republicans, smalltown America, and immigration policy. And holy fuck balls is it tedious.

The video is seven and a half minutes long, which is much shorter than watching the actual episode.

I love the videos from folks like The Critical Drinker, because they save me from wasting time on shows and movies I might have been tempted to watch.

Nerdrotic also chimed in, on X, and YT.

Hal Jordan was fridged in Lanterns.
IYKYK

— Nerdrotic (@Nerdrotics) August 17, 2026

This is the Nerdrotic video Lanterns - Green Lantern GUNNED Down. This video is 24 minutes.

'Coyote vs. Acme' Looks Like a Promising Film

Maybe Hollywood is healing. Probably not, but maybe. From DiscussingFilm: 'Coyote vs. Acme' Review - A Superbly Looney Comedy Worth Saving

Every animation fan has spent some amount of time wishing for another Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Robert Zemeckis’ 1988 masterpiece remains the gold standard for live-action and animation hybrids; a seemingly impossible balancing act of technical wizardry, timeless comedy, and genuine cinematic magic. Plenty of films have tried to capture that same lightning in a bottle, with varying degrees of success. The Looney Tunes themselves have taken a few swings at it, from Space Jam (1996) and its 2021 sequel to Joe Dante’s Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003). Now, after an unexpectedly rocky journey to the big screen, Coyote vs. Acme (2026) gets its chance.

Like The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, Coyote vs. Acme was almost shelved as a write-off. Instead, both films were rescued by Ketchup Entertainment.

Wile E. Coyote is suing Acme for selling defective products. Seems like an interesting place to start.

This is the Official Trailer for Coyote vs. ACME. While it was shown at San Diego Comic-Con in July, it opens August 28th. And it is 103 minutes, which is a reasonable length for a movie.

Why Is She Hulk Still in my Feed?

She Hulk was a disaster of a Disney+ show produced by Marvel back in 2022. It is too bad really. Somewhere around here I have a framed, reproduction cover of the The Savage She-Hulk, from 1979. (See the image below.) It isn't the best comic ever. It was created because at the time it was commissioned, The Hulk TV show was going, and The Bionic Woman had been launched, a female version of The Six-Million Dollar Man, and it was doing quite well. Marvel wanted to get to the copyright of a female Hulk before the network did.

The 1989-1994 run by John Byrne is the version everyone loves. She Hulk was mostly a member of the Avengers and The Fantastic Four during this era, though she did have at least one solo comic. This is the era when She Hulk began breaking the 4th wall.

I also like the early 2000s run starting with Single Green Female. Well, I like the art. I only read that online by way of my local library, so I may be misremembering how it was. I don't remember much about the story.^‡ The image to the left is from that era.

I'm not sure if Single Green Female, from the early 2000s, is better or worse.

I was living on a boat in 2004, when Single Green Female was published. Comics were contraindicated by the humidity and the lack of space for collecting.

Her origin was that she was Bruce Banner's cousin. When she was critically wounded in an assassination attempt, he saved her with a blood transfusion, but she became She Hulk as a result, with a milder version of his condition. That origin is not allowed by Disney-Marvel. A man save a woman? We couldn't have that in 2022.

With all of that, the videos/posts making the rounds are about the disasterous Disney-Marvel TV show. And it was a disaster, though Disney thought it did well enough.

This is the Critical Drinker video She-Hulk - The Show That Literally Killed Careers

Then this X post, came up on Friday Night Tights. (That is an excerpt from the full FNT episode, just dealing with Marvel.) The bit dealing with the She Hulk show, starts at 9 minutes and 50 seconds into that excerpt. I don't have it queued up, because I like the whole thing.

The head writer and showrunner of “She-Hulk” was Jessica Gao. She was best known for being the credited writer on the “Pickle Rick” episode of “Rick and Morty.”

During the production of that episode, “Rick and Morty” showrunner Dan Harmon cast Susan Sarandon as the family’s… https://t.co/zNn8s73b4u

— Daniel Friedman (@DanFriedman81) August 3, 2026

The excerpt is 27 minutes long.

The full FNT is at this link. It is 4 hours long. I haven't seen all of it.

This is the Film Threat News video WRITER JESSICA GAO DESTROYED SHE-HULK WITH WOKENESS. It is 15 minutes.

‡ I have strange tastes in comics, just like I have strange taste in music. In addition to liking some She Hulk that others don't, I also like The New 52 introduction of Batwoman, which most people hate. I thought the art was good, and the first story was OK, but it was Woke, and the 2nd and 3rd story arcs were not so good. (Batwoman in The New 52 was a lesbian kicked out of the military under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," who went on to train with mercenaries. She was NOT Bruce Wayne's cousin.

Joseph Kahn on Saving Hollywood

From The Hollywood Reporter we get an opinion piece on how to save Hollywood. Bring Back the Hollywood Asshole: Joseph Kahn Opinion Column

Joseph Kahn is a Grammy-winning director, who has been involved, primarily, with music videos the past three decades. That apparently gets him an entry into Hollywood studios on a somewhat regular basis.

His radical idea? Hollywood needs to go back to making money, and for that Hollywood needs suits that understand business.

If you do not start making more movies about white guys flying fighter jets, the box office will not justify the monthly gardening bill at the Paramount lot, and you will be replaced by Larry Ellison’s AI or Netflix’s Deep-learning Algorithm Network Licensing Intelligence Node, aka DAN LIN™.

He talks a lot about what happened since COVID, but Hollywood's downfall started long before then.

So this is what we need you to do with your elite MBAs and high SAT scores: Get back to being a meritocracy. Drop the affectations. Best, most profitable idea wins. Hire crews and staff based on excellence, not what your favorite Harvard admissions counselor would love. Build movie stars. Learn what the poors want — people in flyover states who make less than $300,000 a year. Make sure those movie stars do not offend those poors by insulting Jesus or Tom Brady.

If they don't change the way they are running Hollywood, all we will get is the drek coming out of streaming. And yes, some of it is good. A lot of it is filler. Bad filler.

Remember that people's pensions are tied up with Hollywood. Not movie stars or executives, but people who build sets, and record sound, and do all of the other things that make movies and TV possible.

In my youth, back in the dark ages, going to the cinema was something we did on a regular basis. Dates consisting of dinner and a movie became so cliche that TBS adopted it as regular show from 1995 until 2011. Of course movies were not 3 hours, but closer to 90 minutes, which left time, for dinner, a movie, and a drink or dessert. 3 hour movies make that impossible, or at least unreasonable. And just groups of friends would go to the movies to watch the latest over-the-top action movie, or the romantic comedy.

Personally, I think it is too late for Hollywood, in the same way the auto industry will never again be concentrated in and around Detroit. And that's okay. I do hope it survives in some form, and not in the drek we've been getting from the likes of Amazon Prime (Rings of Power or The Wheel of Time) or Disney+ (Willow).

Hollywood Is Dying

I love movies, but increasingly I say that I love old movies, because I haven't seen anything in years, that interested me. Even The Hollywood Reporter is covering the problems, so you know they're bad. Los Angeles Filming Levels Down Amid State Recovery Effort

Since I'm not really a fan of horror these days, I haven't seen Obsession, Iron Lung, or Backrooms. I suppose I will seem them eventually.

The number of shoot days in the three-month period from April to June fell 12 percent compared to the same period last year.

The article spends a lot of time covering the tax incentives in place, and that L.A. Mayor Karen Bass is lobbying to increase.

It doesn't cover all the other insane requirements of permitting in LA, or the dictates of the unions, but then you don't really expect that from The Hollywood Reporter. (I think of that "news outlet" more as a cheering section than real journalism at this point.)

Hat tip to the Film Threat News video LA FILMING LEVELS CONTINUE TO TUMBLE

The problem with Hollywood is it's a hostile work environment.
    — Alan Ng

Why Supergirl Sucks

As explained by Jedi Brooks. Why Supergirl SUCKS - A Scene Comparison. I'm not sure I have anything to add... Enjoy.

Film Threat Reaction to The Odyssey

Alan Ng and Chris Gore had the opportunity to see Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. Alan hated it. Chris said it was mixed.

This is the Film Threat Reactions video THE ODYSSEY OUT OF THE THEATER SOCIAL MEDIA REACTION

“I can’t wait to not see this movie again."
    — Alan Ng

Nolan to Fans of The Odyssey: STFU

The following quote/meme/whatever has been running through my head since I started reading/watching Christopher Nolan's replies/reactions to his trailer going down in flames. "Just consume product, and then get excited for next product."

Director Christopher Nolan isn't used to being on the receiving end of backlash over one of his projects. At least not before the project is released. He has made some bad movies. Not very many people like 2012's The Dark Knight Rises. Some people like Inception, and others don't. But they were all, mostly, highly anticipated before release. Not this time.

Race swaps. Updating for the mythical modern audience. And all the rest. That much is clear from the trailers. And I am almost as sick of Zendaya as I am of Pedro Pascal. (I said almost.)

As I type this, the last trailer for The Odyssey, which was released on the first of July, has 79,000 likes, and 746,000 dislikes. The dislikes are not an exact number, even if I could see more than 3 significant digits, because YouTube removed the exact count to protect people like Nolan. But the internet usually finds a way, and the count returned if you add an extension to your browser.

That ratio, is the reason that Nolan had to speak up, and attempt some damage control. He didn't go about it correctly.

This video is from Andre at Midnight's Edge. Chis Nolan just made ‘The Odyssey’ Backlash Even Worse by Dismissing It

Nolan is tarnishing one of the foundational works of the entirety of Western civilization.

The video is about 14 minutes long.

Hollywood in Decline and in Denial

There are apparently a number of Hollywood Trade articles about the decline of the movie industry. Comparisons to Detroit seem to be everywhere. And there is a reason for that.

Below is Disparu's video How Hollywood Decided It Deserved To Die

But the most interesting part of the question isn't if they're failing, it's what caused them to fail, and how are they trying to fix it?

There is a lot of denial in Hollywood. Their failure isn't due to anything they are doing wrong. They believe they are not doing anything wrong.

There is also denial about where regulations come from.

It's like, oh, we're just a victim of California's tangle of regulations. as if they spring up out of the ether, that regulations are just a fact of life that have to exist rather than a consequence of the actions which California have taken themselves.

They can't see that regulations are a direct result of the people and the party they vote for.

One part that really interested me, is his discussion on the morality of actors. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson didn't want to discuss politics. He was immediately attacked and they tried to "shame him back onto the reservation."

This was part of a discussion of how, and why Hollywood has systematically fired all of the risk takers, and the psychology of the people who are left. (And why they want to shame The Rock back onto the reservation.)

They've killed off the risk takers, the new ideas, because to have new ideas, to be creative, you have to risk being offensive to the horde. You have to tell everyone else, "I don't care what you're doing. I know better." Because sometimes you will.

The video is almost 24 minutes, but I think it is worth your time. You don't need to watch all of it in one go.

I was interested in the 3 articles Disparu mentioned regarding theories of Moral Development, and why Hollywood is stuck in the "go along with the crowd" phase of development. I list them here, in case anyone else is interested.

• Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
• [Carol] Gilligan's Theory of Moral Development
• Understanding Political Differences Through Moral Foundations Theory (Haidt)

Hollywood Still Blaming the Fans

In case you haven't noticed, DC released a movie over the weekend. That was Supergirl. It was a massive flop.

Hollywood can't admit that the current crop of writers don't know how to write a superhero movie. They don't understand what the stakes should be, what the character arcs should be, how the dialog should flow, or anything else that might get people to turn out for a movie.

When Morbius failed, no one claimed racism. Of course when Blue Beetle crashed and burned, they blamed racism. (Explain Sinners then.) It is never their fault for producing a bad movie.

This is just a roundup of some of the reactions to the cope.

First, someone who is not one of the usual suspects. Amala Ekpunobi is usually more focused on politics, but she does push into the culture war side of culture. She published a video Hollywood Does It Again.

Then the usual crew...

• Disparu: Supergirl FALLOUT Gets WORSE As Media Hate Men
• Snarky Jay: SUPERGIRL FLOPPED... Now They're Blaming YOU
• Clownfish TV: Supergirl BOMBED and MEN are Blamed.
• RK Outpost: Supergirl FALLOUT Gets WORSE As Media Hate Men

Imagine if a vegetarian bought the popular (or maybe the 2nd-most popular) steak house in town. Then imagine that they didn't like the fact that the restaurant was serving meat, and so they changed the menu, either slowly over time, or all at once. Would it be the customers' fault that people stopped going to the restaurant? It isn't serving what the people want.

This is certainly what DC has been doing. And Marvel. Maybe all of Hollywood.

So why does Hollywood think their business is different?

They used to understand this. There was a saying. "It is show business, not show friends." I don't think that they understand that anymore.